How to create a positive relationship with money. That is the reflection of the day. I was reflecting on the relationship that I had with money when I was raised in the Dominican Republic and going through my marriage at the age of 17. Living in a place of scarcity all the time, for so many years, and how when we are living in that space, many of us, I think most of us, get stuck in this really ugly relationship with money where we look at money and we get angry that we don’t have enough. We get angry that other people have more money than we do. It creates this envious feeling where most people don’t get happy for the success of other people that have Financial Freedom. What happens is, as we go through generations and especially, I know in the Latino Community, we always say, “Well they got the money.” The people lose themselves when they have the money and we also start looking at those people that have money and we start analyzing them. It creates this vicious cycle where we think negatively about money. We create more of that scarcity feeling where we are never going to have enough. Think about it! Most of you that are listening to this podcast, I want you to think of the conversations that you have about money. I don’t have enough money to pay the rent. I’m never going to have enough money. I have all of these credit card bills. I don’t have enough money to buy a car. I don’t have enough money. It’s always, I don’t have. At some point, I decided to start visualizing my life differently to start visualizing the relationship that I have with money as a positive relationship. I remember when I was a single mom for 17 years. At some point, I remember deciding to buy a house where I was going to be moving with my kids. I remember so many of my own family members saying to me, “What are you doing? Like, are you crazy? You’re going to get into that debt and what’s going to happen if you lose your job? I would say, “Well, I come from nothing so I could always go back. I could never go back to nothing because the way that I lived in the Dominican Republic, I was poor. I was so poor, I could never go back there. It will always be better than what it was.” So I said, I’d take a chance and then, if I have to, for whatever reason, forego the house then, I go back to an apartment. I know I can pay for an apartment. I know I have the ability to work to be able to at least pay for an apartment but I want more. I want more for my kids. I want to have financial freedom. I started developing, without even realizing how fast my mind started to change, where I didn’t look at money negatively. I was looking at money as “Wow, I’m going to be able to do more for my kids. I’m going to be able to save for my kids to go to college. I’m going to be able to take my kids on a vacation. I can and I’m going to be able to take care of my mom. I’m going to be able to help people. Little by little, day by day that Relationship started to build in a very beautiful positive way. I started to see money come to me from different sources and sometimes unexpectedly. When I stopped to think and this is what happened today, we are doing well at Formè. My business is thriving during this time and I knew when I got into Formè, my medical center five years ago, that I was going to struggle. So one of the things that I did was I understood what I was getting into. I was aware that the struggle was going to be there but I was okay with the struggles. I knew that if I put all of my heart into this, this business will succeed and that it could take years for that to happen. So calmly, I decided to go and look at my budget because this is one thing that a lot of people don’t do. You go and spend money and you don’t even know if you’re spending more than you’re making. Most of the time, you have the feelings that create so much anxiety inside of you and that anxiety actually suppresses you to a point where you are not able to really make enough money. You’re not able to get creative enough to be able to make enough money because the relationship right there is a sick cycle where instead of making a list of all of your expenses and realizing how much money you’re bringing, you go in and you start just spending knowing and having the feeling that you’re spending more than what you bringing and doing. Nothing else about changing that. So I remember when I’ve done this for many people. People come to me and ask me throughout the years to be a mentor. When it comes to money and when I do the budget it is like a “Wow” moment. Even though they knew they were spending more, they didn’t even realize how bad it was. So when you are aware then, you can take action. That’s why creating a monthly budget that you review for a few months, you know. I understand my budget and when I came to Formè what I did was I said, “I’m opening up a new business. I know I’m going to be giving up on certain things that I’m not going to be able to do because my priority was getting the business off the ground and making sure that we succeeded. I went and started looking at every single part of my budget. All of my expenses! This is where I got the idea of renting my clothes because I used to spend a lot of money on clothes. I love wearing nice things and I decided that I’m going to rent my clothes. Why not? They are designer dresses. I used to spend a lot of money on clothes. Now, I get a membership that is unlimited. I get 4 dresses a week. I’m saving almost 80% of what I used to spend just on that. That is why, I wasn’t worried of how I’m not going to be able to do my business and be able to keep a nice life. I knew that my life needed to be adjusted but that I was going to keep a nice life and the money will come to me later on. So the way that you develop that relationship is starting to change your chip, starting to change the way that you think of money, start looking at money as something that you can have and you can obtain with your efforts. Start visualizing that it is coming your way and that you are going to be creating this Financial Freedom that is going to allow you to create memories in a more profound way. Because you are going to have less stress and you’ll be able to help people. You will be able to really make a difference with the money. That is something that starts changing you and starts making you visualize your life differently. So with the budget, definitely go and do the budget. The last thing that I’m going to leave you with is an affirmation that I got from the book, “The Power of the Subconscious Mind”. There are other books that have to do with money which I’m blocking right now, but I’ll definitely put it in my website mariatrusa.org, so you can definitely get the list of books. That book that I’m talking about is there. But I’m going to leave you with this affirmation that you should be doing daily as much as you can. The affirmation goes like this, “I am so happy and grateful that money comes to me in increasing quantities throughout multiple sources on a continuous basis.” Let’s reflect, reset and reconnect with money.
